Java Pop - Caramel Flavor

Java Pop Caramel Soda has a light coffee taste completely dominated by a rich and delicious butterscotch caramel flavor. Absolutely mouthwatering - although I found it to be a little too sweet for my taste, it is probably one of the most wonderful beverage flavors I have ever had.

The JavaPop Inc. website lists five flavors in their lineup; however, I've only been able to find the Caramel variety, and that has only been in local job lot stores (where it is a phenomenal bargain at just 25 cents for a 12-ounce bottle.)

Relevant link: JavaPop's site. Warning: it's all done in Flash, and you'll want to dive your mouse cursor to the bottom right hand corner of your screen, where you can turn off the obnoxious repeating music loop.

Julmust

I discovered Julmust at IKEA, where the signs described it as "Swedish Root Beer." I'm pretty sure that they only said that because the unique flavor defies easy explanation.

A non-alcoholic fizzy drink made from hops and malt but otherwise without much beery character, Julmust is a dark beverage with a faintly bitter, herbal element that makes it flavorful and refreshing in a way that sweeter pops don't quite manage. The bitterness that the hops lent to the drink make Julmust somewhat comparable to Moxie, the New England soft drink flavored with gentian root.

Julmust syrup is produced exclusively by Roberts AB in Örebro, Sweden. According to Roberts company history, must was invented in 1910 by Harry and Robert Roberts as a non-alcoholic alternative to beer. Although several companies bottle it (including Coca-Cola) all of the bottlers obtain the syrup from Roberts. The formula is as carefully guarded a trade secret as the formula for Coke.

I'm told that Julmust far outsells even marketing giant Coca-Cola during the December holiday season in Sweden, accounting for more than 50% of all soft drinks sold during that timeframe.

I found Julmust to be quite enjoyable, and I was glad that I bought as many bottles as I did when I was at IKEA. When the current stock is gone there won't be any more until next Christmas.

Relevant link: Roberts AB website (English Language version)

Fishy Delights 11: Brunswick Holmes Sardines

Sometimes when I buy a product, my expectations and the actual experience are so widely at odds with one another that it's like I've been the victim of a "bait and switch" scam. These Brunswick sardines are a pretty good example.

Normally, when I buy canned sardines, I expect the tins to contain several small fish. Expensive "premium" brands might pack twenty delicate little fish (in two layers) into the tin, while some of the deep-discount cheap brands will use bigger and coarser fish (maybe four or five) to fill the tin. On occasion, I've had a few really unpleasant surprises, where there might be two or three fish packed with the scales still intact. Bleeurgh.

But even finding three or four really big sardines in the can would have been less startling than what I actually found when I pulled the ring on these tins, each of which contained two gigantic segments of pilchard.

That picture on the left shows what was in the can labeled as packed in "Louisiana Hot Sauce." The "sardines" are sitting on the plate - two massive cuts from the body of a good-sized fish.

Now, as disconcerting as that photo may be, I have to say that the fish itself was of very good quality, mild-flavored and tender, with no scales or nasty "intestinal surprises" lurking within the body cavities. Unfortunately for those who enjoy a spicy lunch, the "Louisiana Hot Sauce" wasn't much of anything - kind of a mildly-paprika-flavored thin sauce without much body or kick that certainly didn't have much in common with any hot sauce I've ever tasted.

Still, I couldn't complain. At 65 cents per can at the local Big Lots! job lot store, the Brunswick sardines were a bargain, and there are plenty of fishy recipes calling for sardines as a "mix in" ingredient where they'd be perfectly adequate.

Relevant link: Brunswick Sardines and Seafood

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Kraft Easy Cheese - Cream Cheese

Behold Kraft Easy Cheese Original Cream Cheese flavor: introduced in 2007 and already relegated to clearance bins and job lot stores, this curiosity may well have come and gone from your local supermarket without ever attracting your attention.

The flavor is okay; not quite as mild and milky as cream cheese, with a slight but distinct sour note. The texture is typical of all the Easy Cheese flavors, soft without being runny.

It's not hard to understand why Original Cream Cheese was a failure. There isn't anything about it that stands out as a unique or "must-have" feature. Cream cheese is already a pretty friendly product to use, easy to spread right out of the package, and the spreadability improves when it comes up to room temperature. Thinning the cheese out to help it ride through a narrow nozzle isn't a big improvement.

I tried a long time to come up with a use for this stuff that would be unique to a self-dispensing, no-spreading-required product. It wasn't easy, but here you go:

No-Bake Ghetto-Ass Cheesecake Treats

1 box Honey Maid Graham Crackers
1 container Betty Crocker ready-to-use vanilla frosting
1 can Easy Cheese Original Cream Cheese
1 box of Strawberry Fruit Snacks

For each Cheesecake Treat use one graham cracker square and spread it generously with vanilla frosting. Dispense a decorative layer of Easy Cheese Cream Cheese on top of the frosting, Garnish with a strawberry fruit snack. Repeat these steps until you run out of one of the ingredients. You can make this dessert elegant enough for guests if you substitute a spoonful of strawberry jam for the Fruit Snack.

Bacon Gallery: Big Y Fully Cooked Bacon

Pop Tarts Splitz

I was born in 1960, and I can not remember a time without Pop-Tarts. When I was a kid, my mom always seemed to have a box on hand in the cupboard. They were an occasional treat, usually served up with a glass of milk for an after-school snack; Mom used to buy the ones filled with strawberry or blueberry jam though I'm pretty sure that more kinds of fruit-preserve filling were available.

When I was in high school, I discovered that Kelloggs was making a "Brown Sugar/Cinnamon" flavor, and it soon became my favorite. There was a layer of moist, cinnamon-adulterated brown sugar filling sandwiched between two layers of short pastry crust, topped with a hard shell of brown-colored confectioner's glaze. They were delicious, and completely devoid of any kind of nutritional value whatsoever - Brown Sugar/Cinnamon Pop-Tarts defined the phrase "empty calories" even better than alcohol.

I have the feeling that over the years, the hypersweet junkfood Pop-Tarts have been better sellers than the [not really] healthy fruit-filled ones. I never seem to see new fruity varieties get introduced, but I've noticed plenty of the "empty calorie" variety ones come and go. Like, for example, this one: Pop-Tarts Splitz, with chocolate filling and frosting on one side, and vanilla frosting and filling on the inside.

Now, if you don't like Pop-Tarts to begin with, nothing I write here is going to change your mind about them. The basic flavors in Pop-Tarts haven't changed all that much since I was a kid, and with the exception of the fillings, there isn't anything different about these. The pastry crust is still pretty industrial, kind of flaky/crumbly, with a quite pleasant shortbread note to it. The frosting is still that hardened confectioner's-glaze style stuff that reminds me of hardened royal icing.

There aren't any real surprises inside, either. The chocolate side tastes like sweetened cocoa and the vanilla side like artificially-flavored vanilla cake frosting. There's no fruit, no "healthy bits," nothing at all here to redeem them to parents concerned about their childrens' intake of lowest-common-denominator crap. They're just like the Brown-Sugar/Cinnamon Pop-Tarts of my youth, updated with fresh new carbohydrate overload, and with a frosting pattern on top that resembles tire tracks on a snowy road. Pretty awesome all the way around, I think.

Pop-Tarts has their own website at www.poptarts.com. Be advised if you go there, it's kind of clunky and top-heavy with animations and stuff, and they also tell you that you can't access some of the content without shutting off your pop-up blocker. Pretty funny, huh?

Ramen Review 2 - Nissin Cup Noodles Souper Meal, Chicken

Nissin Cup Noodles Souper Meal, Chicken Flavor with Vegetable Medley

Ease of Preparation: 8/10
Add water, contents of vegetable packet, and soup flavoring; cover and microwave for five minutes; stir in flavor enhancer packet; allow to stand two minutes before serving. Roomy and sturdy paper bowl required no extra support to remove from microwave.

Vegetable Packet: 8/10
Fairly standard packet with cabbage, carrot, corn, onion, mushroom, parsley, and little chunks of TVP. There was a generous amount, though, and the mushroom and onion pieces were nice and big.

Taste: 8/10
Rich and enjoyable chicken flavor broth is tasty and satisfying, though not quite as good as Lipton Cup-A-Soup (which is the gold standard for powdered chicken broths in my opinion.) This Souper Meal also includes an envelope labeled "Flavor Enhancer" which is meant to be stirred in just before serving. In the past, I've found that I don't really enjoy the soup as much with this oil packet stirred in (it tastes like slightly rancid sesame oil and I found that it didn't do much "enhancing.")

Spiciness: 0/10
This is not marketed as a spicy ramen, so no points will be deducted for this zero score.

Overall rating: 8/10 when prepared without Flavor Enhancer. Recommended.


Relevant links:
Nissin Home Page
Nissin Souper Meal Nutrition Facts (from www.thedailyplate.com)

Ramen Review 1 - Nissin Chow Mein, Teriyaki Beef Flavor

This blog entry introduces a new semi-regular feature to Dave's Cupboard: Ramen Reviews. I've loved ramen noodles ever since I was a kid. They're cheap, flavorful, and filling, and they're available in a huge number of varieties! Although I'm starting off with a relatively common Nissin Chow Mein bowl today, expect to find some more unusual flavors and noodle styles as I rustle through the ramen aisle of my local Asian groceries in search of less familiar fare.

Nissen Chow Mein, Teriyaki Beef Flavor.

Ease of Preparation: 6/10.

Add water and contents of vegetable packets to the bowl; cover and microwave for six minutes; stir in contents of seasoning packet and oil packet; let stand 1 minute before serving. Easy, I know, but points off for the six-minute microwaving time and a very flimsy bowl that needed the support of a plate underneath it in order to be removed from the microwave after heating.

Vegetable packet: 8/10

Onions, green onions, carrot, shiitake mushrooms, small bits of meat-like TVP.

Taste: 9/10

The delicious "teriyaki flavor" was more like a combination of teriyaki and hoisin sauce and reminded me of Moo Shu. The shiitake mushrooms, besides being a rare treat, added a richer depth of flavor, and the bits of TVP scattered here and there were tasty and added some textural variety as well (though you'd never in a million years mistake them for beef!) Although a touch on the sweet side despite the addition of vinegar powder, it should be noted that the flavoring packet now has sucralose as a sweetener rather than the glucose it once contained.

Spiciness: 0/10

This was not a spicy ramen, but because it isn't marketed as spicy, no points will be deducted from the final score.

Overall rating: 8/10 - Recommended.

Relevant links:
Nissin Home Page
Nissin Chow Mein Teriyaki Beef Flavor Nutrition Facts (at www.thedailyplate.com)

Miss Vickie's Potato Chips

Miss Vickie's, a Canadian potato chip brand now owned by Frito-Lay, Inc., is a kettle-style chip that claims to be cooked in small batches.

Like most kettle-style chips, they're thick cut, very crunchy, and somewhat more greasy than their standard counterparts. And like other Frito-Lay chips they have a mysteriously "sweet" taste to them (mysterious because sweeteners are never listed on the ingredients, yet one bite of a Lays potato chip and you know it's a Lays because of that sugary aftertaste.)

As chips go, Miss Vickie's are decidedly ordinary. They're no better than Cape Cod chips or Grandma Utz's Old Fashioned chips, both of which are also "kettle" brands, and they may even be at a disadvantage, since Utz chips are very fresh-tasting and "potato-y" and Miss Vickie's are kind of, you know, run-of-the-mill.

Though I've never yet seen a bag of Miss Vickie's chips in a supermarket, the single-serving sized bags are sold in vending machines, convenience stores, and at Subway sandwich shops around here and they do pretty well. Part of that might be due to the number of flavors they come in (there are eleven in all) and part might be the distribution muscle of Frito-Lay. But the quietly elegant packaging probably catches more than a few eyes. The matte-finish screen-printed mylar and bilingual labelling is admittedly attractive, and then there's that "farm-fresh" nonsense (as though anyone believes a mass-market chip is made anywhere but in a factory these days.)

Here's a listing of the flavors available; any of them that I've tried have short reviews, the others are ones I haven't yet tasted:

• Original Recipe - Thick, greasy, salty, mostly taste like potato-flavored oil; very crunchy.
• Jalapeno - Exactly what one would expect, medium-level heat mostly from addition of cayenne pepper with green jalapenos adding a good deal of grassy taste and little extra fire. Got these at Subway to accompany a sandwich, and I have to admit they went well with my sub.
• Sea Salt and Malt Vinegar - Good vinegar tang, but too much salt; potato flavor heavily masked.
  
• Mesquite BBQ - Completely unexceptional, this was a dead-average chip with fake BBQ flavoring. I hate "BBQ flavored" anything. Including these crappy chips.
• Sweet Chili & Sour Cream - Pronounced sweet-paprika flavor with undertones of sour milk. Not that impressive, but different enough to be interesting.
  
• Lime & Black Pepper - Good, fruity black pepper taste; lime was a lot like the vinegar but with a hint of citrus; would have been better as a simple "Black Pepper" chip.
  
• Honey & Roasted Garlic
  
• Roasted Red Pepper Grill
  
• Vintage Cheddar & Red Onion
  
• Roasted Garlic & Herb
  
• Harvest Onion

Final verdict: Miss Vickie's chips aren't special enough for me to actively seek them out. But the flavors are, for the most part, unique and if they are on the rack alongside another standard chip, I'll buy a Miss Vickie's flavor that I haven't yet tried just for the sake of variety.

Dill Wholes.

Heh heh hehheh heh m heh...dillholes.